You're just a ghost in my life
Coming in and out as you please
And even though I love you
I have to constantly remind myself
We died a long time ago
We're not real anymore
And we never will be.

i frequent the bars
       dumpsters
and graveyards
       i like the graveyards
best
        you cant beat the
conversation

Fall and follow down the river
Walking the sacred streets in silence
How imbued with the ethereal mist of prayers are these tables
These wooden chairs I sat in and wrote the diaries of my youth
I wrote lies with causal power
Constructed the material from ideas
Spoke over the waters and found land

Eat a candy cane to cover the scent of rolled tobacco on your breath
And get on a plane
Green busses down cobblestone lanes
Follow them like purple orchids on the terrace

Fall and follow down the river
A brown bench,
Balding fog
Sit like kneeling at the altar of the saint of childhood innocence
Repeat her prayers
Chant her mantras
Sing her hymnals
Ritual tower chimes with hell’s fear behind it
Rope and brass that dare not fall or falter
Down the river
Ripples like innumerable green eels screeching through the sacred heart of our Lord and city centre

Mornings like Masala chai and sunshine
How infinite and unceasing the heartbreak of those who love too deeply
How inevitable the prolonged fall of the great
Like eighteen razor blades
Shot through the sunrise
Bitter fruit of memory merciless
No amount of sacrifice can atone for the imperfections that lie beyond the boarders of my control
But I hail Mary nonetheless

Fall and follow down the river
Mother Mary cannot hear over the pounding power of the current
So seal your lips with black clay
And do not cry
For there is nothing more to mourn
Morning comes ripping down the track like a freight train
Tarantula clouds and sunbeams scamper over the sockets of your log-laden irises
Bleeding indigo from parallel razor blade canyons
Filled with the ghosts of things you were never promised

Masala chai oversteeped like the strong scent of river memory
Tremble tell me I’m forgiven
In your white robe anointing oil
Tell me I’m the chosen one
Incense and ****** knees from kneeling at sandpaper pews
Getting drunk of Eucharist, the Holy See,
Oceans of archives, history, prophecy,
Frankincense and myrrh,
Frankenstein, the Light, the Vine and highways through the suburbs
Jump off bridges
Fall and follow down the river

An eye for an eye
And a stitch for a stitch
Mile for mile river prayers define and drown me
Thick slabs of scripture separate me from my sisters
Masala chai and sunshine
Vaseline and pale northern light clear the black river clay from your pores
Embrace the snow
Teach yourself to love the suffocating questions that burn and blind you
Retroactive sacrifice still requires fresh indigo blood
Donate freely.
Fall and follow
Down the river
To the sea
Salt water heals all razor blade wounds
Even the self-inflicted
The choices you make to be good or great are swallowed in the moon tide
Sticky tie-dye bruises erase themselves with time and prayer
Like cups of strong Masala chai.

Lady, the dew of years
Makes sodden the world
And yet there is no morning.
Lady, we cannot think you
Indifferent or far,
And we lean and call after
You who in the night,
As a morning, among
This our heaviness came
And our eyes called you maiden.
We are in the darkness,
Our eyes turned to the door,
Waiting. Because you passed
Through the room where we are,
Your form not cumbered
With our weight and gesture;
Waiting, because you went
Uncontained by our shadows,
As a light, quietly;
Leaning, as though you might
Come again where our eyes
Are lost that follow after
You who as a light
Through the room where we are
With grace carried a flower.

The day before seeing you
Sky
Is unreasonably
Overcast.  

Plaintain stalks
Quarrel with each other

Birds go silent

Friends talk
In some other language

When the tea vendor
Asks for change
I give him a pen
When the girl in the office
Asks for the headset
I hand over my mobile
Car’s key
To the beggar

A crow
Scolds me
Asks me
Where have I gone
I ask myself the same

The day before
I came to see you

No
Nothing
Hope
It’ll rain
Tomorrow

The sky
Grins knowingly.


Translator - Shyma P

Choking on words
Attempting to shove them down

Reliving the vision of you
Brings mixed emotions

We do not speak
For reasons continually multiplying

Yet I wish to tell you
Hurts unspoken

I dream of stopping you
In your tracks

Merely to tell you
Secrets left unsaid

"Your teammate's hands
Skipped consent

I cannot forget
The look in his eyes

His touch left my skin
Purple in places

He made me feel
Like I was the cause."

But dreams are
Only hazy

They're wishes meant
For the mind only

We do not speak
And I will not tell you

You will never know
Of bruises on thighs

I try as hard as I can
To go back to those summer nights
When you were mine.

The cheap movie rentals play
And as you get up to leave
I beg you to stay.

It's been months since I last heard from you
I barely drink coffee anymore
'Cause it never is as fresh as the one
You'd brew.

All I have left is your unwashed tee
And the trail of polaroids you
Always took of me.

Sometimes your touch I still feel,
And then I realize it's 4:03 AM
And again, it was a dream and
Nothing real.

I close my eyes and think of you
And that time when you
Told me not to cry
And that
I was truly only mine.

I never believed you when you said
You'd leave
Cause it never seemed
Like you'd grown
Sick of me.

I try as hard as I can
To go back to those summer nights
When I was yours.
When you were mine.